Amazon remains UK's biggest e-retailer

Amazon has held its position as the UK's biggest online retailer in the fourth annual IMRG/Hitwise Hot Shops list - a position it has held since the list's inception.

In fact, the top three remain unchanged with Argos in second place and Play in third. Apple make up the top four - it has climbed 13 places from 17th in 2009 due to the online orders of the iPad amongst other things (the list is produced too early to include iPhone 4 sales).

From the original top 10 back in 2006, there are still seven businesses present and six of the top 10 have physical stores as well (a total of 33 out of the top 50 have physical stores).

It has been rumoured that Amazon would be opening a physical store to support its online presence, mainly due to a Sunday Times article that ran at the end of last year, that has since proved to be false.

IMRG's CEO James Roper said:

"With multichannel retailers now accounting for two-thirds of the top 50 merchants, it is clear that those with both physical stores and an online presence are leading the growth in e-retail.

"This is also evidenced in the IMRG Capgemini E-retail Sales Index, where multichannel retailers are consistently outperforming their pureplay counterparts in terms of sales growth.

"Not surprisingly, fashion retailers continue to move up the Hot Shops List as clothing remains one of the fastest growing online sectors".

How many of the online retailers do you use and do you think it helps if they have a High Street presence? And would you welcome a physical Amazon store, maybe one where you could pick up your online ordered goods?

Give us your thoughts on all of these questions using the comments function below.